


Little Lion Man

by Silvermoonphantom (Daitoshi)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Blood and Injury, Episode: s08e10 Torn and Frayed, Hurt/Comfort, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daitoshi/pseuds/Silvermoonphantom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam leave the warehouse just a moment sooner, just enough to interrupt Castiel before he can land the final blow on Samandriel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Justify

As Dean and Sam exited the building, the shorter hunter could hear a murmur of voices.

From across the parking lot, he could see Castiel crouched over the smaller angel, blade in his hand. Alarm jolted through him, and he broke into a run, barking out a command for them to stop. Cas froze at the sound of his voice, head turning slightly.

As he approached, Dean could make out his friend’s face, the expression eerily blank. Alfie reached forward,  his expression fearful.

 

An explosion of movement, and Castiel lashed out. Light exploded out from the smaller angel’s eyes and mouth, accompanied by a pain-filled scream that seemed to pierce the hunter’s soul. He stumbled, clutching his head.

The noise started tapering off and Dean was able to look up, anger coursing through him. They were meant to save Samandriel! “What the hell are you doing?!”

Castiel stood, his face still expressionless.

“It was in self defense.” Even the voice was monotone.

Dean’s eyes widened as a trail of blood started seeping down the angel’s face. Castiel reached up, swiping the back of his hand over it and looking down at the liquid. He seemed faintly surprised, but continued to speak.

“I must return Samandriel’s body to heaven.”

“Like hell you are.” Dean shoved himself between Castiel and the kid’s body, his shoulders tense.

 

A look of confusion flitted across Cas’s features, and for a moment his face opened up into something full of surprised horror. He took a step forward, stopped, and looked down at the bloodied blade still in his fist.

With a gust of wind and the sound of flapping wings, Castiel vanished.

Dean heard his brother walk around the impala, but kept an eye out for any surprise visitors. His heart was tight, emotions fighting for dominance and tearing his brain apart. They were supposed to rescue Alfie, the kid had been tortured by Crowley. Instead, Cas pulled this bullshit.

But there was something horribly wrong with his face and words, before he left... Like he wasn’t in control of himself.

 

“Dean! Look at this!”

He spun around, stopping abruptly at the sight offered to him. There was Alfie, striped shirt and bloodied, but behind him were crumpled a rather large pair of wings. The limbs shifted slightly, trembling. They looked like they should have been white, but with all the blood and dirt it was hard to tell.

The movement betrayed the kid’s state of life, but it didn’t help much with Dean’s confusion. He had seen the light show, how was he still up and running?

With a wary step, he  joined Sam in crouching next to the slim figure sprawled against the Impala. Behind the blood still oozing from grotesque holes in his forehead, Dean could see the kid’s eyes slowly blinking, trying to stay awake.

****

“Hey” Sam murmured, “You still with us?”

Alfie tilted his head slightly, lips moving as he if was trying to say something. Sam leaned forward, trying to hear the whisper, but the kid’s head lolled forward. Dean looked down to find a wrist, intending to take the angel’s pulse, but what he found made him pause. He gently grasped the limb, lifting it up into the yellow lamplight.

The kid’s hand had a huge gash through it, starting from the center of his palm and opening up the meat between thumb and forefinger.  There was a similarly shaped gash in the angel’s right wing, feathers splayed unusually and dark fluid streaming over the feathers.

 

Dean nodded sharply, his mind made up.

“Lets get him wrapped up, we’re taking him back to the cabin.”

He could feel the look of surprise Sam was throwing at his back, but ignored it in favor of running for the first aid kit in the backseat. Dean tossed the bundle to his brother, who opened it up and started wrapping Alfie’s hand. Stopping further blood loss was first on the list, they could sew up the damage at the cabin, where there was good light and a way to at least attempt to sterilize things.

More bandages wound around the kid’s head, fingers delicately pushing back the blood-spiked hair

 

Sam wasn’t sure how to take care of the wing. His knowledge of animal care extended to what Amelia had drilled into his head, regarding medication and resting time for his adopted mutt. He ended up wadding up some of the remaining cotton and pressing it against the wound, grimacing as the white quickly changed to crimson.

Dean left the backseat wide open, bending down to scoop up Alfie, trying to handle the strange weight distribution without letting him fall. Sam looped his arm around the wing he held, keeping pressure on the wound and helped his brother slide the kid into the backseat.

Sam opted to join him back there, long legs fitting into the floor space and grimey  feathers splaying over his shoulder.

The Impala rocked as Dean slid into the front seat, slamming his door shut and starting the car without so much as a ‘how do you do’.

****

It wasn’t until they were cruising down the highway that Dean spoke again.

“So how’re you doing back there?”

Sam glanced up, shifting his legs as they complained about the awkward position.

“Decent. His heartbeat’s slow, but still here.” Sam rested his head against the back of the passenger's seat, wrinkling his nose as one of the long feathers shifted across his cheek.

“He’s breathing, too.”

Dean nodded, hand flitting to the radio dial, but retreating back to the steering wheel without turning it on.

Sam hummed, wincing as they hit a bump in the road and his tailbone ground against the distinctly not-padded flooring. He glanced up at Dean, wondering how to broach the topic gently.

“Is something going on with Cas?”

Dean exhaled tightly, gripping the steering wheel harder. Sam waited, knowing the topic was a sensitive one.

 

“He didn’t seem like himself.” Dean muttered, eyebrows furrowing.  “He looked like he wasn’t in control.”

Sam looked concerned.

“Like a demon possession?”

Dean shook his head.

“I don’t know any demon that can possess an angel. I dunno man, it was like, before he bamfed out, he looked shocked at himself.”

“People do have regret, you know.”

Dean growled, shooting a quick look of irritation toward his brother.

“It was something different, I swear. It wasn’t right.”

Sam nodded, even though Dean had already turned back toward the road.

 

They sat in silence for the rest of the ride.


	2. Wine Red

They rolled up to the cabin, gravel crunching under black tires. It took a fair bit of maneuvering to get Sam and Samandriel out of the back seat, neither hunter sure how delicately they should be handling the huge wings.

Dean almost tripped at one point, stumbling enough for Sam to shoot him an alarmed look.

They got the angel inside, moving him toward the bathroom with careful steps. Dean propped him up against the outside of the tub, watching Sam tuck the kid’s wings back so they lay inside the tub.

“Crowley and co. sure didn’t pull any punches.”

Dean looked up at Sam’s voice before nodding.

"Yeah."

He plucked at the red and white shirt, grimacing as it insisted on sticking to the kid’s skin. Probably glued there by blood.  He sighed, stepping around Sam and heading to the bathroom mirror for some antiseptics.

“Go get the stitches, I’ll get cleaning stuff ready.”

 

He listened to the footsteps leave. Dean found the metal bowl they kept in the bathroom for such emergencies, filled it with hot water from the tap and grabbed a small pile of washcloths from under the sink. Tucking the cloths under his arm, he swiped both bottles of antibacterial cream from behind the mirror cabinet. He hurriedly washed his hand, scrubbing fiercely before awkwardly cradling the bowl in one arm and kneeling down beside their crumpled angel.

 

Sam had already returned to Alfie’s side, using scissors to cut open the kid’s striped shirt. As an afterthought, Dean wondered how angels put on shirts, if they had an extra pair of limbs to deal with.

He set the bowl down, glancing over to briefly inspect the damages done to the angel’s torso. It looked half-healed, cuts and scrapes from various sources, mottled bruises ranging from pale yellow of the nearly-gone to ugly purple and red.

Dean’s lips thinned, trying not to imagine the kind of damage an angel had to take before the effects started to stick.

 

He pulled up a chair next to the bed, gently lifting up the kid’s mutilated hand and placing it inside the bowl of water. Blood immediately radiated out, curling like smoke through the liquid until it was all tinged pink. Dean leaned back, abdomen straining as he looked for any remaining surgical gloves that could be in the closet.

He found the box, but there was only a single glove left.

“You’re better at stitches than me.” He said, handing it to his brother and moving to examine the wing. The bleeding had slowed significantly, likely the only reason Sam had opted to abandon it in favor of gathering supplies.

Dean turned on the bathwater, silently apologizing as it splashed all over one of the wingtips curled up in that end of the tub.

Sam had a needle pinched delicately between his fingers, the metal already sliding gently into the torn flesh. Dean clenched his hand as he felt a sympathetic phantom pain at the sight.

Dean cupped his hands, transferring hot water from the tap and pouring it over the wounded area of Alfie’s wing, not even surprised at the color the water was turning.

They worked for nearly three hours, hunched together around the tub with a injured angel and water getting anywhere physically possible. Most of the grime and blood had been wiped away, revealing the extent of the damages. The angel had yet to awaken, still sprawled limply over the tile and plastic tub.

 

They had encountered a faint burnt smell when Dean finally cut away the last of the striped shirt. The wings had apparently burned their way through the fabric, creating two charred holes in the striped material.

Finally, Dean put the finishing touches on their make-shift wing-sling. They tried to keep Alfie’s wing nearly closed, folded so the bandage was tucked closely to the wound. It involved strips of cloth and a pair of shoelaces from a pair of busted boots. 

 

“I guess that’s it, then.”

Dean stood up, stretching his arms above his head. His back popped satisfyingly, and he let out a happy groan.

“What’do you say we set up a nest for the chicklet and hit the hay?”

Sam laughed tiredly, running a wet hand over his face and scrubbing at his eyes.

“I still want to know what’s up with the wings. I thought an Angel’s true form was supposed to burn our eyes out.”

Dean hummed consideringly, stretching an arm to the side and swinging his body.

“Maybe it’s because he’s wearing a meat suit, the rules are different.

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed, disbelievingly. They had seen Cas use his grace to blast demons away, incinerating them even while in a vessel. The light suddenly manifesting as fluffy white wings was a bit of a stretch.

 

Sam stood up, stretching his own back for a moment before heading toward the bedroom to retrieve some blankets.

“I’ll set it up between our beds, so we can take shifts making sure he’s still alive. At least until he wakes up.”

Dean nodded, puttering around the bathroom to put their supplies away. He pulled a towel off the rack, throwing it on the floor and nudging it toward Alfie with his foot. There was nearly a puddle around the kid, their attempts to clean out his wounds without making a mess greatly hampered by the torture methods those demons had used.

 

There had been grey ash ground into one of the chest wounds, another caked with some sort of pale blue crystals that neither of them wanted to identify. It had rinsed away easily enough, something they were both thankful for.

He heard Sam call out from the bedroom, and stooped down to gather Alfie up into his arms again. He was heavy, especially on the head-end, where the shoulders created a great off-balance feeling. He maneuvered through the doorway and stepped onto the blankets his brother had laid out.

They double-checked his pulse (still fine, still slow) before changing outfits, more comfortable shirts and dry pants replacing the ones they had on.

It was nearly morning, birds already serenading the sunrise by the time they had gotten under their own blankets.  Sam resolutely chose the first shift, promising to wake Dean up in three hours. He propped himself against the wall his bed was tucked against, pulling out a battered spellbook.

Dean pulled the comforter around his shoulders, remaining tense for a few minutes before slowly relaxing into sleep.

Samandriel slept, wings spread to dry on either side of him, layers of blankets piled around and on top of his slim figure.

 

\---

 

[Now with artwork!](http://silvermoonphantom.tumblr.com/post/48406346955/accompaniment-to-little-lion-man-where-cas)

 

 


	3. I'm Alive!

They had switched shifts a few times during the night, varying between three and four-hour periods. Dean spent his time torn between worrying about Castiel’s strange actions and wondering how the hell Sammy fell asleep so quickly. He got up once, to close the curtains when sunlight finally started streaming inside.

It was close to 2pm when Sam woke up on his own, rolling over and yawning widely. Dean nodded at him, shuffling down into his own blankets and closing his eyes.

He listened to his brother shuffle the blankets around, yawn again, and get out of bed. There was the sound of running water and splashing, a repetitive noise that could only be brushing ones’ teeth.

Dean was just barely nodding off when Sam whispered that he was going to move Alfie onto his own bed, to change the bandages. Dean gave a slow thumbs-up, flopping back onto the wrinkled sheets and burying his face into the pillow.

Rustling blankets and feathers barely fazed him now

The loud screech and crash however, did get his ass out of bed immediately.

Sam was sprawled against the wall, looking startled at the flailing figure on the bed. Alfie was thrashing his wings, eyes glowing brightly and strange whines and broken-off syllables pouring from his mouth.

Dean dodged one of the massive wings as it was flung his way, lunging toward the kid to pin him to the bed.

Bright eyes snapped to his figure and in a flurry of wings, Alfie was sent crashing across the cabin and into the opposite wall.

“You alright?” Dean’s voice was sharp, his eyes pinned on the angel.

Sam stood up, rolling his shoulders, but otherwise looking fine. Dean only spared him a glance before grabbing a gun from the bedside drawer and slowly walking toward the crumpled angel.

“Guy packs a punch, but I’m fine.”

The wings were splayed awkwardly, lines of the kid’s back stiff and trembling. He could hear a quick, panicked breathing, and Dean stopped a few feet away from the still figure.

“You going to keep freaking out on us, or talk this out like reasonable human beings? Well,” He tilted his head “Reasonable beings.”

There was no answer, and Dean took a slow step forward.

Sam spoke up, his voice quiet.

“He’s scared, Dean, I was going to change the bandage on his head, and he woke up with scissors over his face.”

“It’s pretty obvious he’s scared. The question is whether or not he’s going to attack us.”

He crouched down, sitting on his heels with the gun still firmly clasped in front of him.

“Alfie, you in there?”

The angel moved, tilting his head to watch Dean out of the corner of his eye. The bandages were bloody, but the color was mostly that of the dried version. The cuts across the kid’s cheeks, open and bruised the day before, looked like they were about a week into a normal human’s version of healing. His angel mojo was still on, then, albeit weak.

****

Dean jumped back, training the gun on the angel once again, as Alfie pushed himself upright and scooted back to press himself into a corner. The sling they had created had come loose, but not enough to completely free the wing, making his movements a bit lopsided.

He looked around, clearly confused. A brief touch was placed on his facial wound, then on the bandages wrapped around his head. The light brown spikes looked a bit goofy, sticking out around the layers of white, but he couldn’t see that.

****

Blue eyes flicked up, trailing over Dean’s cautious position.

“Dahsarah o’ee emahna.”

 

The phrase sounded like complete gibberish to the older hunter. Dean glanced over to Sam, who gave him a half-shrug and a ‘sorry cant help you’ sort of from.

When he looked back, Alfie looked a bit more lost.

“Ohlaneh Enen’neh Nei’Dali....Pahpe no rah?”

 

“Listen, I have no idea what you’re trying to say, but English would probably help.”

Dean had lowered the gun again, not even flinching as Alfie drew his pale wings around him.

“Can you understand us?”

 

The angel nodded, hunching down behind the feathers. It was almost cute, if this whole situation wasn’t so crazy. He started trembling again, and immediately got less cute. Dean crouched down, offering a hand out like he would to a startled animal.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. Calm down.”

“Ohlaneh Enen’neh ” Alfie tucked his wings around himself, making a feathery cocoon in the corner.

Sam hovered, looking indecisive.

 

“We warded the cabin against angels, last night.” Dean looked up at him. “Maybe it’s messing with him, being inside a warded area? I mean, we still don’t know what caused the wings to manifest, maybe it’s something serious?”

Dean rose to his feet, backing away from the angel, and sitting down on the bed, keeping an eye on the ashy wings.

“Manifest, seriously?”

Sam gave him a look.

“It’s accurate.”

 

“So what now? Just wait until featherhead chills down and learns English again? Or are you going to magically brush up on your Enochian?”

Sam sighed, leaning back against the wall.

“I called Benny last night.” Dean said, focusing on his gun. He rubbed a finger over the barrel, working at a small smudge. He could feel Sam looking at him.

“Broke it off, so... yeah.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, wanting to say something about how it sounded like they had been dating, and Sam was the angry parent.

Instead, he looked toward the window, sighing deeply.

 

“Well, it’s morning, Dean. I’m still here.”

The elder looked up, eyes boring into him.

“So this is it, then? We keep going like we used to?”

Sam gave him a wane grin.

“Try to, at least.”

 

 

 


End file.
